


continuity

by strikethesun



Series: wars of the roses modern/reincarnation AU [3]
Category: 15th Century CE RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Family Reunions, Multi, Name Confusion, Trauma, brief anti-capitalism, convoluted premise, i think this is another bechdel test fail, references to chicago area landmarks, reluctant woobification, shameless displays of wealth, unclear worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:40:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25593670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strikethesun/pseuds/strikethesun
Summary: "...as soon as harry noticed their conspiratorial glances, he encouraged them all to take up residence in the basement.after all, that’s why i bought a wii in the first place,though he failed to mention his proficiency at virtual archery."henry has only visited his father's rather egregious vacation home twice. the two visits couldn't have been more different.takes place simultaneously before bothnot the lake that never gives up its dead, but close enoughandthis crazy lazy river we call lifeas well as between them.
Relationships: Henry VI/Marguerite d'Anjou | Henry VI/Margaret of Anjou
Series: wars of the roses modern/reincarnation AU [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1831168
Kudos: 3





	continuity

catherine gave a final look through henry’s bags—several changes of clothing, a swimsuit for the lake (and she figured, _his private pool as well),_ toiletries, his illustrated bible (she threw in some more age-appropriate selections too, without consulting him, fare with dinosaurs and superheroes on the covers), and his favorite stuffed animals. she nodded, and the driver took them off to the car—she had forgotten what a nod could accomplish.

what was left? to pack away henry, of course. catherine crouched down to his level and put her hands on his shoulders. “it’s just for the weekend, honey, and you’ll be in good hands.” 

henry looked unconvinced. at eight years old, he had never spent the night more than a hallway away from his mother. now, he was about to get into a car with a stranger (paid for by his father, naturally), drive for an hour and a half, end up at his dad’s vacation home, and spend the weekend with not just his dad, but his dad’s entire family—three brothers, two sisters, and a set of parents who _remembered everything._ catherine decided not to voice her fear that at least one of them, at some point in the next forty-eight hours, would unload something on henry, and that he would immediately break down crying. instead, she pulled him into a tight hug, kissed the side of his head, and presented a front of confidence. 

“you know my number. if anything happens, you can always call me—but nothing’s going to happen, and you’re going to have a lot of fun, okay?” 

when henry only nodded, hands fidgeting, catherine felt a small pang of guilt—the boy’s father had explicitly said that she could come, too, but the repulsion she felt for that entire clan had kept her away. _he’d feel so much safer if i came along—but he has to learn how to deal with fear eventually, right?_

“you go have a good time now, and i’ll see you on monday.” 

the driver quickly realized that henry wasn’t interested in conversation— _the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, then_ —so they spent most of the hour and a half drive in relative silence, accompanied by an oldies radio station that both found innocuous. the city slowly peeled away, replaced first by shopping malls and corporate parks, then the monotony of the interstate. henry saw a couple landmarks that he remembered from the last time he drove this far north—catherine had taken him up to milwaukee about a year ago because she liked the sound of the headliners at _summerfest_ —the restaurant that hung over the road, held up by only a couple pillars on the median, and _great america_ , which catherine had decided to wait at least a few more years before attempting with henry, based on the look on his face just from watching people ride down _american eagle_ from the safety of their car. 

jasper had a similar look on his face as he pointed to the quite impressive drop on _raging bull._ kat had asked repeatedly that summer if they could go to _six flags,_ but margaret deemed jasper, still in his car seat, too young to bring to an amusement park just yet. she nearly asked again as they drove by, particularly as she wasn’t _too_ excited to spend the weekend with the part of the family no one ever talked about, but her mother had insisted that they would only stop once: at the food court over the interstate for a bathroom break and also because she wanted iced coffee. before she could even leave the dunkin donuts line, henry had promised the kids ice cream, which had taken longer than margaret expected.

“you know, if they really wanted to hold us up _forever,_ i wouldn’t mind,” catherine said, arms crossed, standing next to margaret by the floor-to-ceiling windows that revealed the highway they were directly over.

margaret sighed. “we said we’d be there by three. at this rate, it’ll be closer to three-thirty. i don’t really care about _them,_ but i don’t want to break a promise.”

“i don’t know why i agreed to this.” catherine found it increasingly difficult to mask the fact that she was shaking just a little bit all over. 

“catherine?”

“i can’t stand the sight of him. why would i want to meet his brothers again? what the hell am i supposed to say to his mom?”

margaret grinned. “isn’t she, like, ninety? she might not even know who you are.”

“she won’t _really_ know who i am anyways, because we didn’t meet before.”

“well, you and i didn’t meet before either, but we get along fine, right?”

catherine attempted to smile, but it didn’t quite register. “we’re united by love, though. the only thing connecting me to that woman is genealogy, and even then, it’s tenuous.”

“you gave her a grandson, and now _we’ve_ given her three great-grandchildren,” margaret remarked, looking over said great-grandchildren heading back towards them, ice cream cones in hand. “she’ll love us.”

not long after crossing the state line, the driver made a sharp turn to the left, which took them past increasingly rural scenery. from afar, henry could make out a farm with dozens of cows idling on the grass. the driver noted his wonder with the bittersweetness of someone thoroughly jaded.

eventually, farms and fields were replaced by a shock of boutiques and cafes. a couple turns later, and they had entered into a forested labyrinth of houses progressively both larger and further away from the road, one that the driver navigated expertly, which henry found genuinely awe-inspiring.

margaret turned to henry. “ok, what’s the next turn?”

he frowned at his phone. “i actually think you just missed it.”

she gripped the steering wheel just a little tighter. “come on, seriously?” margaret had tried to avoid looking at the time display, but a glance confirmed her worst fear— _3:10._

“sorry, honey, it’s a real maze in here. it’s right on the lake, though, so just keep driving towards-”

“that would be helpful _if_ we could still see the damn lake from here, but we can’t, now can we?”

ned stifled a laugh from the back seat, while kat nudged him until he would look at her wide eyes and hand over her mouth. both had heard their mother swear plenty of times, but rarely _towards_ their father. jasper remained oblivious, hand and cheek nearly plastered to the window, while catherine was too busy mentally rehearsing her lines: _oh, nice to meet you, mary, it’s a real shame it’s taken us so long. yes, i’m the one who seduced your perfect little angel into having a bastard child, but more importantly, what are your views on war crimes? for or against? does it count if the victims are all french?_ — _no, we have to be serious about this._

henry sullenly waited for google maps to recalibrate. “ok, take the next right.”

“the _next_ right-”

“no, i mean, _this_ one, right here-”

“ _this_ one?”

“ _yes-”_

margaret hit the brakes halfway through the intersection and spun the wheel all the way around. “see, you can tell that none of this rich assholes actually drive _themselves_ anywhere, or else they wouldn’t have designed such a nonsense neighborhood.”

henry tensed. “have you gotten the wealth disparity frustration out of your system for now?” he suddenly remembered the version of his wife he had truly fallen _in love_ with for the first time, in the modern sense of the term, that bold student activist calling on their university to redistribute its endowment. when he had explained the situation with his father to her, margaret had nearly spit her coffee out, but instead sagely muttered _i guess some people really like their divine right to rule._ yet in all the time they had known each other, she had only been forced to confront harry monmouth once, at her own wedding, where he didn’t stay for long out of fear that someone would recognize him. a tight smile, a quiet _congratulations,_ an awkward hug, and he was gone. for all his bold, tongue-in-cheek branding, going so far as to reference the bard in some of his advertising, seemingly itching for someone to identify him as a reincarnate, harry was adamant on not being publicly associated with having a son born out of wedlock, as though it would ever have been a deal-breaker for a man of his caliber. 

as the driver pulled into the long pathway leading up to the house, henry tried to picture his father—he had only met him a couple times, and it had been more than a year since the last time, when his mother had taken up him to his penthouse apartment in chicago. he remembered the way that catherine turned as soon as she heard footsteps coming towards the door, and had already gotten back in the elevator before harry could open it. henry seriously doubted if he would ever see his parents in the same place at the same time, but his mother would never explain _why_ beyond a vague _well, your father and i have our differences._

he quickly had no need for the shadowy image in his mind, though, because there was the real man, standing at the door, smiling the warm smile that seemed specifically reserved for his son, waving at him. the driver pulled up, parked, and before henry thought to get out the driver was already opening his door. 

“there’s my boy. god, you’ve grown,” harry called as he met his son in an embrace. “...and how’s your mother doing?”

henry had rarely ever needed to answer this question before. the reminder of his separation made him pause, and his father’s face briefly clouded. “she’s...good.” 

harry brightened again, putting a hand on henry’s shoulder. “good! we’re gonna have a really fun weekend, henry—actually, we might have to temporarily change your name, considering your grandpa…” he gave henry’s shoulder a couple brief pats. “would it be weird if we called you hal? i’ve been harry for too long to switch back at this point, and i don’t think my dad’s going to want to give up name dibs. this _really_ wasn’t a problem before…”

henry nodded. “hal is okay, dad.”

harry looked unconvinced, but returned his son’s nod. “okay, yeah. yeah, you’ll be hal for the weekend.”

margaret pulled into the long driveway and parked behind a station wagon fairly similar to their own. “see, we’re not the only plebeians here. any idea whose car that is?”

henry shrugged. “it’s been a long time since i’ve seen any of my dad’s family. maybe humphrey’s? i think humphrey and eleanor are, like, the relatively normal ones, because they’re not really involved in the business.”

margaret tried to disguise the way she stiffened at those names as she got out of the car. “right. humphrey.” she quickly reminded herself of the pact that had been made between her husband and his father over the phone a couple nights ago: _save any talk of the past for when everyone else goes home._ she idly glanced through the windows of what was perhaps humphrey’s car as they walked past it towards the front door—a couple coloring books and markers strewn across a car seat confirmed what she had heard from henry, that this time humphrey and eleanor were successful parents—though this probably wasn’t their car after all, because she could have sworn henry said their only child was older than ned. she tried to remember the rest of the guest list—harry’s father had passed years ago, but his mother was still alive, and so were all six of her children: harry, thomas, john, humphrey, blanche, philippa. harry had never married, and neither had thomas, but everyone else at least had a spouse, if not children of their own. the house was massive for a reason—well, several, but only one of them included self-aggrandizement. however, only a select number had been included in the overnight plans: the six children, and henry’s family. _everyone who remembers._ if john, humphrey, blanche, and philippa had children, they weren’t like henry or ned; they didn’t _know._

margaret turned back to henry, who had gathered jasper up in his arms and ensured that kat and ned were ready to meet a bunch of uncles and aunts whose names they hardly recognized. catherine’s mouth was drawn into a thin line and her shoulders were clearly tensed, like a stray dog ready for a fight long after being adopted into a safe, loving home. margaret could relate. as she stepped up to the door, she braced for impact. 

harry guided hal inside, leading him by the hand to a broad, open living room with a wall of windows that opened up onto the lake. they were met by a middle-aged couple sharing a loveseat and their six young-adult children. all eyes turned to henry, now hal—harry had actually decided on that with his father earlier, and assumed that the younger henry wouldn’t complain—and stayed on him for a moment of silence. 

_what were they looking for?_

it was different for each of them. the elder henry was trying to see him as anything other than the fall of a dynasty he had sacrificed so much in order to secure, trying so hard to simply love his first grandchild _ever,_ in a sense. this feeling was much more attainable for mary, who held the memory of her first family like a snowglobe near her heart, perfect and incorruptible and young and shiny, and was overwhelmingly grateful for every day where her second family could come together as one again. thomas, blanche, and philippa were excited to finally lay eyes on their nephew, and any more complicated feelings that came with said nephew were temporarily repressed. john compared him to the little boy he remembered arranging a coronation for all those years ago and was delighted to see how much more _life_ this boy seemed to have—even if he still resembled a deer in the headlights when presented before an audience. humphrey felt a rush of mixed emotions, memories that intertwined and spiralized out of control—an infant he swore to protect, a boy he attempted to mould, a teenager who began to resent him, a young man who had decided after two decades of loyalty and effort that he was no longer needed, standing beside his rigid little french wife who had already been taught by humphrey’s enemies to fear and loathe him. he hoped nobody else would notice that his eyes were watering, but the boy looked right at him—and then turned away. harry squeezed his son’s shoulders, and tried not to think about the day he first learned he had a son, and the horror that grabbed him nearly as physically as his final illness when he realized that he would never hold him; he thought instead about the call from catherine eight years ago— _we’re both safe. he’s a boy. i already think it’s him again; don’t ask me why, but i do. i named him henry. come hold your son._

mary reached out towards ned, jasper, and kat, but didn’t even attempt standing up from her easy chair. “oh, my babies!” 

henry set jasper down and nudged each of his children towards his grandmother. kat was the first to get there, and the most enthusiastic about the hug; ned found a half-crouch that made putting his arms around her not altogether awkward, and jasper embraced her knees. in a swift movement, mary grabbed jasper around the waist and pulled him up onto her lap. “it’s so nice to finally meet you all. there are so many kids around here now! you’ll have to meet all your cousins and second cousins later. oh, i wish we could always be together like this.”

catherine made eye contact with mary for just a moment, and she could have sworn that the older woman’s unceasing smile ceased right as she registered who catherine was. the latter quickly looked away, scanning the rest of the massive living room, full of the buzz of conversation—aside from harry, who was standing by the windows, she had no hopes of recognizing anyone. besides, she figured anyone under forty was almost certainly _new,_ and the realization made her head swim— _do they think this is just a normal family? well, save for the billionaire uncle?_

“henry, you come here too. oh, my little boy,” mary intoned as henry obligingly bent down to embrace her. “please, introduce me to your wife and mother! your wife—margaret, we’ve met before, right?”

margaret shuffled over to the rest of her family, arranged around mary’s chair. “yes, we met at our wedding, but i don’t think we really got the chance to talk.” catherine hovered behind margaret, trying to slow her breathing—

“and you must be catherine. it’s so nice to finally meet you.” when mary turned her face to catherine, there was no trace of malevolence or malice. the corners of her eyes crinkled, and her smile fit naturally within the deep wrinkles of her cheeks. “you were at the wedding too, right? but you left so quickly.” 

catherine shuddered. “i...wasn’t feeling well that day.”

mary frowned sympathetically. “oh, that’s how it goes, isn’t it? that reminds me; i hate to ask, but could one of you help me up? i want to show catherine something.”

henry dutifully held his arm out while catherine’s heart fell into her stomach. 

mary was the one to break the spell _then_ , too. her arms went wide. “oh, my grandson!” 

hal found his way into her embrace; she pulled him up into a spot between her and henry, who hesitantly slid his arm around his grandson’s small shoulders. mary played with his hair and kissed his cheek. “i know, i know, we take such good care of ourselves that we look _way_ too young for it, but _please,_ just call me grandma.”

“okay, grandma.”

mary beamed. “he’s so sweet! nice work, harry.” 

harry crossed his arms. “i can’t take nearly as much credit for that as i’d like to.”

“oh, wait, i thought you were going to bring along his mother, too.”

harry cringed. “i asked.” hal shifted unsteadily.

mary didn’t miss a beat. “well, we’ll just have to meet her some other time then, right guys?”

the rest of the family, grateful for her neutralizing presence, nodded.

catherine hesitantly followed mary into a large bedroom, lit only by the small amount of sunlight peeking in behind the curtain. she led her to a dresser lined with framed photos—catherine recognized them instantly as being of a younger mary, first with her husband, then an added photo for each child—but there was an eighth one too, and mary reached for it first and held it to her breast. 

“catherine. you’re nervous.”

catherine nearly gagged. “mm.”

mary put her hand on catherine’s shoulder and rubbed slowly, up and down. “ooh, you’re tenser than i thought! _relax._ what’s so frightening?”

catherine eased into mary’s touch. “everything. i’ve…i’ve been avoiding you for most of my life. more than forty years. i don’t even really talk to harry if i can avoid it, and i usually can.” she blanched, realizing she had brought up the very thing she had least wanted to talk about with mary.

“i thought it was harry.” mary smiled sadly. “i love all my children to death, as i’m sure you can understand, but...i don’t blame _you_ , specifically, for not feeling the same as i do about them. it’s not _just_ harry either, is it?”

catherine shook her head like a child caught in mischief. “no. no, i didn’t really want to talk to john or humphrey either. _again.”_

mary paused, trying to remember catherine’s full story, then her face brightened. “oh, did you ever find that welshman again? i bet he was really cute, ri—”

“no.” catherine blinked. “no, i didn’t.”

“oh.” 

“yeah.”

“yeah,” mary repeated. “but look at us now, catherine.” and she turned the frame around to her, revealing an image clearly taken in front of the house they were standing in, henry in his father’s arms, laughing, surrounded by his aunts and uncles. “it’s so unfair that we had to be taken from our children so soon last time. henry and i were honestly terrified that something would go wrong when it came to philippa again. but it didn’t,” mary said. “it didn’t at all.” 

catherine wordlessly took the photo from mary’s hands, blinking away tears, and put it back with the others. then, she pulled mary into an embrace, and cried on her shoulder.

margaret, meanwhile, had found herself in conversation with blanche and her wife, both in their late fifties. “so how did you and henry meet?”

“well,” margaret began, looking across the room to see her husband seemingly deeply engaged with facilitating play between john’s grandchildren and their own younger children, who turned out to be of similar ages. “we went to college together. he was two years ahead of me, and we honestly wouldn’t have met if i wasn’t so active in politics even then. he came up to me after a rally and said i reminded him of someone he knew. it was a bold move, really, and we were both so afraid of scaring the other off that it took about two weeks into our relationship to fully establish that—” margaret’s brow furrowed. “wait.”

blanche broke into laughter. “oh, don’t worry, margaret. trust me, she _knows,”_ she said, elbowing her wife playfully in the ribs. 

margaret bit her lip, turning to blanche’s wife. “are you…?”

“nobody you would have known, so don’t worry,” the wife replied. “but yes. blanche and i were a lot like that too. it’s just not the kind of thing you want to bring up, you know?”

henry couldn’t stop thinking about how this new generation playing with legos on the carpet in front of him was blissfully unaware of their family history—he and margaret had decided when kat was still very young not to talk about it, and john had reminded the facebook group chat a couple days ago that even his own wife didn’t know, let alone his children or grandchildren. the seven-year-old boy and three-year-old girl fit nicely into kat and jasper’s world, and henry felt refreshed by the concept of second cousins, _in his own family_ , getting along well. 

some of the tension in the air that had entered along with hal began to dissipate the more they got him to talk about his life: the classes he liked best in school, his closest friends, his favorite parks and museums in chicago, his favorite color, the hamsters he was allowed to keep in the apartment he shared with his mother, and yes, the illustrated bible he had refused to leave behind, even just for the weekend. everyone grew relieved at how well-adjusted he seemed, all things considered, particularly john and humphrey, who remembered a very different boy in his place. this mood continued through dinner, as everyone took their turn updating everyone else on what was going on in their lives—business was booming as usual for harry, and thomas and john by extension, while humphrey was still working on his phd, blanche on her master’s, philippa on her bachelor’s. 

but it couldn’t last, and everyone knew that it couldn’t last. nobody could recall by the morning who had started it, or how, but the conversation eventually turned towards the past, and kept them awake long into the night. at first, it was only hal apologizing to everyone else, and then everyone else apologizing to him in turn, even when it didn’t really make much sense, such as when coming from mary or blanche, but soon the apologies extended to include all of them, like a spider spinning an impossibly complex web. by the time they all fell back in their respective beds, apology felt like a physical force coursing through them, gently rocking them to sleep, as tangible as their sheets and blankets. harry had set aside his own bed for hal, after catherine had warned him that it would likely be difficult for him to adjust, and instead took up an air mattress on the floor at the other end of the room. he woke up, still in the dark, to a shifting weight at the foot of the mattress.

“father.”

“henry. something wrong?”

henry shook his head, but clutched his stuffed bear tighter. “sometimes i go to mom’s bed to cuddle.”

harry sighed out of relief. “i’m not exactly known for my cuddles, but i’ll try.”

henry pulled back the blanket and nestled himself against harry’s chest. “i always wanted to do this. _last time_.” 

harry had been in the process of repressing all the emotions forced back up by the night’s long conversation so that he could get at least a couple hours of sleep, but henry’s words cut him like a knife. there was a moment, close to the end, hazy through the frosted window of pain, when he realized he had practically forgotten he _had_ a son until constructing a will for two entire kingdoms, and that that son would forever be an absolute stranger to him. even if they were to meet in paradise, or someplace else—his own son, his _only_ son, would, at most, perhaps think he recognized him from a painting or carving. worse, harry would have no similar aid to go off of, only the hope that they would resemble each other in some way. but who truly knows his own face? and he could hardly recall catherine’s, beyond the image of ideal queendom, blonde and erect and painted.

harry slowly stroked his son’s hair, pulling him tight against himself. henry responded in turn, throwing a small arm over his neck. before too long, the boy’s breathing became slow and regular, but harry sobbed silently for a while after.

“oh come on, i could’ve gotten that!”

antigone threw her head back in laughter. “well, you _didn’t.”_

ned laughed too, but his cousin-once-removed had truly awakened a competitive streak in him that he wasn’t fully aware existed. moments later, the race ended—antigone came in first, ned in second, and philippa’s middle child—neither had caught her name—in third. while they were the only three taking up the couch facing the TV and the wii, philippa’s other two children could be heard nearby in an intensely focused game of billiards. 

antigone and philippa’s oldest, a son, had begun the party feeling obligated to talk with the rest of the adults about how college was going, but as the afternoon progressed, they both realized that between philippa’s two younger children and now ned, there were a number of awkward, aimless-looking teenagers far too old to spend time with the other children but not quite old enough yet to have perfected the art of small talk, and as soon as harry noticed their conspiratorial glances, he encouraged them all to take up residence in the basement. _after all, that’s why i bought a wii in the first place,_ though he failed to mention his proficiency at virtual archery.

after navigating back to the main menu of _mario kart,_ antigone paused. “wait, you all know about reincarnation, right? please tell me i’m right.” 

ned froze in horror, but philippa’s children nodded enthusiastically. the youngest, who couldn’t have been older than fifteen, chimed in: “yeah, of course. i thought it was just uncle john’s kids and grandkids who don’t.” 

“but,” ned stuttered, “i thought you were all... _new.”_

“oh, we are,” antigone said. “but it’s kind of hard _not_ to know when your parents met on an _AOL message board_ for reincarnates. plus, a name like _antigone_ requires a bit of explanation. _”_

philippa’s other children had abandoned the billiards table by this point, and took up chairs by the sofa. the eldest addressed ned: “you’re not new though, right? our dad’s really into this kind of stuff, even though he’s new like us. mom’s told us basically everything she knows. you’re edward of lancaster, or westminster, right?”

ned fidgeted, unused to hearing himself addressed like an encyclopedia article. _or rather, an uncertain footnote in one._ “yeah, i guess.” he laughed nervously. “your parents seriously just _talk_ about... it?”

the middle child, sitting on the opposite side of antigone from ned, added, “well, our dad even wants to write a whole _book_ about reincarnates, so, yeah.” she put her wii remote on the coffee table and leaned over to look at him better. “you should go talk to him, i’m sure he’d love to listen to whatever you have to say.”

ned’s skin began to crawl. antigone watched him with a careful eye. the youngest burst out with “how well do you really remember stuff from last time? have you always remembered _all_ of it?” and then, with an adolescent boldness, she added: “even the end?”

her older siblings seemed about to chastise her, but ned abruptly left the room, and silence took his place. antigone stood up without a word and followed him into what appeared to be a home office. she closed the door behind her.

“i barely know them better than you do, or else i would’ve tried to step in and rescue you back there.”

ned was sitting in what was presumably his grandfather’s great swivel chair, turned away from antigone so that she could only see the top of his head—yet he was clearly trying to hold back audible sobs. antigone turned the chair around before he could protest, revealing a sixteen-year-old boy with his head buried in his knees.

“look, i’m not going to judge you or anything, okay?” she crouched down and nearly put a hand on his shoulder, but stopped herself. “first of all, you’re still a kid to me, so it’s not like i had high expectations, but second, and more important, i’ve seen my parents break down over what seems like nothing for my entire life. i’ve learned not to pry. i’m never going to _get_ it, and honestly, that doesn’t seem like such a bad thing to me, based on current examples.” this got a combined chuckle-sniffle out of ned, and antigone smiled. “i’m...i’m my parents’ way of feeling normal. that sounds cold, but i know it’s true. and i’m willing to bet your little brother and sister are kind of like that for your parents, right?” ned hesitated, then nodded. “to be perfectly honest, aunt philippa’s husband sounds like kind of a tool to me.”

“yeah,” ned choked out. “what a weirdo.”

“i don’t want to assume, but i feel like it’s always the women who died in pregnancy or childbirth or whatever who end up weirdly well-adjusted.”

“i don’t know,” ned muttered. “my grandma’s kinda messed-up. but maybe that’s just because she had to be married to my grandpa.” 

mary and catherine eventually returned to the rest of the party, in time for dinner, which was a combination of offerings from john and his wife, blanche and _her_ wife, and philippa and her husband. noticing the amount of tupperware, margaret had nudged henry—“were we supposed to bring something?” 

henry shrugged. “i don’t remember seeing anything about food in the group chat.”

dinner was much livelier and noisier than last time, though it wasn’t followed by the same sort of hours-long, emotionally-charged conversation that took place when henry had to go by _hal_ for the sake of differentiation. ned sat between his own siblings and antigone, who he had already begun covertly texting with under the table, having exchanged numbers back in the basement realizing that they had undergone a bonding experience at the hands of philippa’s clueless children. mary sat at one end of the table, harry at the other; catherine sat next to mary, and the more they talked, the stupider catherine felt for spending all week terrified at the prospect of meeting her. henry had already spent most of the time at his dad’s house commiserating with his cousin, john’s oldest son, over the stress of raising toddlers. margaret had entered into a game of trying to figure out who the hell blanche’s wife once was— _someone i wouldn’t have known, but did she mean_ personally, _or not at all? why didn’t she elaborate? why didn’t i ask when i had the chance?_ after briefly attending to a small mess jasper had begun to make with his pasta, margaret had to stifle laughter at the idea that blanche’s wife didn’t want to reveal her identity because she was _joan of arc,_ having snuck into the lion’s den, waiting for the opportunity to pounce on a nearly-seventy-year-old billionaire. margaret looked from harry to blanche’s wife, and could have sworn that she _winked._ for certainly not the first time, margaret repressed the voice inside of her that told her to take up arms like that maid of orleans and turn this family reunion into a full-out siege.

half of the party left, one-by-one—first john’s son, having small children to put back to bed up in milwaukee, followed by blanche’s wife, who once again winked at margaret before kissing blanche goodbye, promising to pick her up in the morning, then antigone, who had a nearby hotel room reserved for the night, and then john’s wife peeled off with her younger child, a daughter, and then even philippa’s husband, not exactly adept at hiding his disappointment, left with his children, understanding the rules of the game. all who left did, but that game was a little different to each; who’s to say that any of them truly knew any more than the others?

those left behind were mary, her children, catherine, henry, margaret, and _their_ children. kat and jasper had to be put to bed, but then conversation could commence. there was so much to say, so much that _was_ said, but still so, so much left _un_ said, left to drown in those cool lake waters outside. _another life, perhaps._

postscript: 

“it would be cool to live in a big house like that,” kat said, watching her grandfather’s mansion pull away out of sight behind evergreens.

margaret sighed, turning onto the main road after what felt like an endless driveway. “see, you would think so, but you have to sell a part of your _soul_ for it, so in the grand scheme of things, not worth it.”

henry nearly interjected with some theological comment about the nature of soul-selling, but closed his mouth before anything could come out of it. 

kat frowned. “what’s a soul, exactly?” 

margaret put a hand on henry’s thigh as though to communicate through skin, through clothing: _don’t start. not now._ “you’ll know when you’re older. just trust me on this one.”

**Author's Note:**

> things i nearly included in this fic, but didn't: a joke about the chicago suburb of bolingbrook, a description of the salt and sand storage domes near six flags
> 
> in terms of historical accuracy, if it doesn't agree with wikipedia, it's probably on purpose, but if it does and is still essentially inaccurate, that's me starting to encroach on a historical period i'm less familiar with (and starting from one i have an extremely amateur understanding of anyways). unnamed OCs are unnamed out of more than just fatigue, though that undoubtedly played a role. "antigone" is not the historical antigone plantagent, because i'm operating off the assumption that antigone was not eleanor cobham's child. woobification ≠ endorsement.


End file.
